California repeatedly warned about fragile gas supply, spiking prices. But fixes never came
LOS ANGELES — California officials have had repeated warnings over the last two decades that the state’s unique blend of gasoline is susceptible to supply shortages and sharp price spikes.
But despite multiple reports and special committees, California has struggled to find solutions as it tries to rapidly reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.
Motorists got a reminder of this in recent weeks as prices hit record levels in an increasingly fragile gasoline market, after almost half the state’s refineries experienced recent or ongoing outages, pushing the supply of West Coast gasoline to its lowest level in a decade.
Yet state leaders remain far from a comprehensive fix.
“We’ve got to make longer-run plans and not just wait until the crisis is upon us,” said Severin Borenstein, the director of the University of California, Berkeley’s Energy Institute at the Haas School of Business, who sat on statewide committees in 1999 and 2015 aimed at
